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Andy
Is cannabis legal within South Africa? Stay watching to find out the answer. Welcome, Andy. How’s it going? Hey, good dude, age old question is cannabis legal in South Africa so bleak that there is actually a misconception about it? And that is obviously pros to it. And there’s some things that you can’t do. And hopefully we’ll be able to explain that or to you guys today. Just a quick disclaimer, not legal advice. So just throughout throughout the episode, you know, obviously, when we’re giving you the best knowledge that we have, but yeah, we’re treasuring treasuring into the legal waters, which which isn’t our main domain. But yeah, I hope you guys learned something today. So Dan, what’s the sort of first point on on legislation that people are asking you on a day to day and that you come across? Yeah, I think that’s an important point, we do get asked this question a lot of time, you know, there’s a to a couple years down the line, and we still have little to no legislation. So it is a complicated one. But there are some sort of common common themes in the space. And the first one is going to be quantity, you know, for for a smoker, or someone who is someone who is wanting to move around with a little bit of personal consumption weed. A lot of the time they’re, they’re concerned about what kind of quantities you are allowed. And well, while there’s no, there’s no direct answer, or the answer to they’re saying, Okay, you can have or no legislation saying you can have this much, or you know, an exact quantity. It’s basically you’re allowed to have as much as you can consume personally. So, you know, a couple 100 grammes is going to be fine. But, you know, a couple 100 kilos, hidden under your floorboards, that’s not going to be fine. You know, so like, gauging for yourself.

Things like if it’s, if it’s a kilo, that’s just like chilling in your, you know, chilling in your pantry, versus a kilo that’s, like, wrapped in black plastic bag, and then like, you know, compressed with sellotape around it, it’s like, it just changes the whole thing. You know, it’s like, but like, you know, if it’s, if it’s in your car like that, then it’s now you’re probably over the limit. But if it’s in your freezer for storage, now it’s fine. So it’s, it’s like, you know, back back in the day, they used to like, I think it’s I think it’s improved now. But you weren’t allowed to make a noise they made like, making a noise in a in a residential area illegal.

But that’s kind of what they’ve done with quantity, right? They just say it’s illegal, but then they don’t say like, how loud or quiet can it be? Like, what’s the limits? Yeah. And they just kind of going on, like, whatever their interpretation is on, like the quantity if it’s not personal use, right. Yeah. And that’s the problem as well because it nights left open to interpretation. So when did it

Dean
stop me Dima kilo too much, and one cop may key Dima kilo just the right amount. But as long as you can smoke it all and prove it, then, you know, pretty much okay, no judge, I can smoke 500 bombs in my watch.

Andy
Present exhibit exhibit A, this is the defendant and one kilo of weed over a 24 hour time lapse, please.

Dean
I suppose the best way would be to film every bond, you smoke over a month period and then have that like interior compilation. And then on that compilation, you could attach values and have that all on a spreadsheet. So that’s like locked down. But you know, quantity once again, all jokes aside, I

Andy
was gonna say, I’m not kidding, that’s actually a really good point. You know, we joke now but like, if you have quantities consumed, you know, consumption quantities on record, it does help your case. If something were to, you know, if you were ever to have you know, you’ve come down to the police are saying you’re dealing it’s a deal about quantity, you’re saying it’s not a deal about quantity, he literally like a journal is probably one of the best, you know, like written testimonies from like, friends and family is probably all you can rely on, like in terms of like how much you could consume. So and I remember a conversation

Dean
with Myrtle actually a couple years ago on this exact point. And she was saying, you know, keep a ledger keep a ledger of how much weed you’re producing for yourself. Keep a ledger on how much you’re consuming and what happens to it so that you do have a track record. And I mean, that mean if you’re that sounds like you’re a serious, serious Stoner, but also if you’re, you know, and then you’re taking it down to like wanting to get the math, but if you’re also a concerned individual, and like the paranoia is affecting your consumption, you know, and you wanting to remain in the right, they ask the slight steps you can take but you know, once again, just don’t don’t don’t overdo it, like produce as much as you need. And you know, if you’ve got a little bit of additional maybe turn it into something maybe you grew to match the summer for what you’re going to smoke, maybe turn that into a tincture or into an oil of some kind or extract it you know, and also if you are extracting maybe a larger quantity might be okay then then you obviously you just need to be aware of your extraction, consumption. But the quantity point remains a hot issue. Big because it’s the main thing a lot of the time, it’s what people will look at and then and then deem, okay, yes, this is dealing or No, it’s not. So it is. It is a tricky topic and it’s very frustrating that we don’t have much legislation on it. But

Andy
10 kilos of flour looks a hell of a lot worse in one kilo of distillate, you know, or like 500 grammes of distillate, you know, in terms of interpretation. So it’s like a very irritating thing, because like, they’ll probably take you down for 10 kilos of flour. But if you have like half a jar of like gold, you know, they probably not going to take you down for that, which is I can

Dean
just put honey on the label, you know, just honey, put it in your cupboard, and then it’s fine. Store nicely in your fridge. So So yeah, tricky. Tricky point. But quantity aside, like our main our main second question, I think Andy can cover this one. And that goes on to sort of the home growing point. And it’s the only bit of sort of slight bit of legislation from Yeah, from the from the protection is that is that yeah, you

Andy
know, what it does say it very clearly is that you are allowed to grow for personal consumption in your sort of private, as long as it’s a private space, you’re an adult. And it’s for personal consumption. And it’s, you know, it’s not imposing on anyone else’s right to privacy and things like that. And yeah, that’s, that’s your daughter grow, which is great. You can grow indoors or outdoors, it can be pretty much yet you have no limit. And that’s where the kind of thing and to say, that conjunction with the limit that you’re so cool, we can grow, but how much so it does does come back on that. But yeah, don’t don’t feel afraid of having a plant or two in your garden. You probably shouldn’t have like kids around, they did have some proposals that would make if it’s your plant, and you know, someone’s helping you you’re paying someone else to because of the haze club judgement, if they got that it’s in appeal at the moment, but they actually said no, because they were growing for someone else that it was illegal, which isn’t really part of this episode. But if, in that case, yeah, because you’re growing at home, you probably should be growing it yourself and not having, you know, not paying people to help you with the drawing. So there’s just sort of one of the more finer technicalities. But yeah, that’s, that’s the home great, it’s great. It’s great that we can do that. It’s not many countries can’t No, I

Dean
mean, it does, it does allow us to, to explore and to to produce our own. But once again, you know, having you know, 10 to 15 plants, and then having to pull a cup out versus having 150 plants, you know, it’s completely different stories. So once again, it’s just sort of open to your, your interpretation. I mean, if you’re growing tiny little autos, maybe 150 would be justified. But if you have like 150 trees, you know, then now all of a sudden, it’s it’s in a different, a different space. So I’d say again, it’s it’s, unfortunately, you’ve got to interpret it for yourself and look at your usage and sort of, you know, how many people are in the House who’s consuming but once again, it’s important to keep the keep careful. And to I suppose this could dump us kind of right into our next point, which is you is the selling aspect like can you actually sell weed in South Africa? And the easy answer for that is no, you can’t. Bad Can you buy weed in South Africa? And the answer to that has changed over time, you now can actually because because THC has been put into schedule six, which is the same as sort of hardcore prescription prescription painkillers and things like that, there has been a an allocation allowed for something called a section 24 which is done via softpro, which is a you know, it’s a medicines body. It is a private company, it’s not government owned, but it’s, they’re issuing something called a section 24 And these section 20 fours have allowed the, the landscape for the opening of dispensaries. So people who don’t want to grow, you know, growing is going to be the best, it’s going to be cheaper, especially if you’re growing outside and you’re going to be able to produce more quantities for a longer period and be self sustaining and have complete control. But if that’s not all for you, and you just want to get medicine because you need medicine for you know, some sort of proper ailment that you’re facing, you do have the option option to go to your doctor to get a prescription and then to be dispensed to via a section 24 dispensary which basically technically is selling you know, there’s an aspect for people to know so that you’re you’re selling medicine, so you’re basically a pharmacy, you know, you’re not running you know, running a cool little, you know, bad bad bad shine at that point. It’s policy. A lot of paperwork

Andy
with that with the Yeah, it is yeah, it’s just policy and procedures not a fun way of going about it as again but it’s a it’s good that they have an option there for the people that physically can’t grow. You know, like if you I have, like, a lot of people just don’t give a rat’s ass about growing. But you know, they just want to smoke and like, especially if it’s medicine for like a child, or I don’t know if they will prescribe that. But like, you know, it’s all for a young adult and you know, it’s they maybe not capable of growing Yeah, they just want to get something but anyway you I suppose you can sell if you’re a medical facility and you’re selling to because like, well, if they dispense the section 18 A, they technically they gotta be buying it from somewhere, was that’s coming from a medically licenced facility, right?

Dean
So the section Yeah, the section 24, you can’t apply for a medical licence to cultivate under Section 24, you still have to apply for a medical licence to cultivate under an expert and offtake agreement. So if you are existing medical facility that has been able to come online and it’s received their licencing, you’re now able to plug into the section 24 and start to supply the dispensaries. So if I’m honest, I don’t think that’s a badge of BS, like you should be able to apply if you’re if you’re able to buy opinion, if you’re able to, if you’re able to apply for a licence, and then to Export. But now because you’re allowed to export, you have a facility, all of a sudden, you’re allowed to sell locally, you should technically be able to apply for a section 24 licence where you can now grow to supply section 24. And hopefully, we see that come somewhere down the line within South Africa, because it would help the, you know, generate a bit more, a bit more local, local business. But yeah, you basically, the long and the short of it is you can’t go about that route. And you would still need to if you wanted to sell for export, it’s still need to go and apply and go through the software licencing. And then also to, to, you know, get your offtake agreements in place in order to in order to come online.

Andy
I think that’s literally they could make the entire like they could change the entirety of the cannabis industry. If they just changed that. The Constitution, just say Yeah, and you can go for personal consumption. And so that would just be it, you know, there would be like the industry would explode overnight, like it did in Thailand, it would just bring millions in tourists in Canada, tourism, millions in infrastructure and global shops opening up. It’s like the one plant that we’ve always said from the get go. It’s like if you have very little, you can get hold of seeds you can cultivate at home. And if you’ve got a tiny piece of land or you’ve got a small space, you can make you know you can self sustain off that alone or supplement your salary of that if it were you know, legal so it’s yeah, just really hope that does come along. You can though. technicality gift, cannabis, as far as we’re aware, which I think I assume means you can give but like no. Not allowed to get anything back. Right?

Dean
Yeah. So you can gift I’m not sure if quantities exactly. I mean, in the draft bill, you often often see quantities floating around, nothing’s been legislated just yet. But say aye, I want to now give Andy some some bad and, and he wants to smoke and I’ve grown a little bit extra, and I don’t want it, I could gift it to Andy and give it to him and say, Here’s your baton. But I could add he could not give me anything in return. So you could now go give me a tennis racket and be like, here’s a tennis racket, because that would be considered a trade and that make it illegal that you couldn’t go do like free work for me or some shit, you know, because that would now be considered illegal providers gave you the bad but yeah, hard to hard to hard to prove. But just so you know, we are we are exploring all the angles as Yeah, but so nothing can change hands back towards me. But I could give any bad and say this is your bad now and that would still be illegal. And I wouldn’t be breaking anything. But there could be no return reciprocal to me for that specific transaction. So I couldn’t know. And he couldn’t give me anything back for the specific 50 grammes of bad which I now gave to him as that as a gift like a birthday present. You know, you don’t expect something back when it’s someone’s birthday

Andy
100% We’d love to hear what you guys think if you’re in a country where it’s legal or if you’re in a country where it’s illegal, obviously, just leave us a little comment below, we make sure to reply to pretty much all of the comments. So it’d be cool to hear from you guys. Don’t make fun of us. If it sounds like we’re coming from the prehistoric ages, if you’re in one of those countries where it’s legal already. We are fighting our best fights to get there but some people just aren’t as ready for it as other countries to public and people always say oh, you know, this is what we were fighting in, you know, 2017 or 2015 your ages ago. It’s anyway bleak on that front but we always appreciate you guys listening and watching to the end. Make sure you have a great week and till next time Peace guys. It’s guys